


At the Firmament

by AceRinky (Asexual_Ravioli)



Series: Mikasa Ackerman X Annie Leonhardt Shorts [27]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 17th Century, F/F, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asexual_Ravioli/pseuds/AceRinky
Summary: In awe the siren marveled at the sketch. “Am I really a sight such as this?”“Yes. Beautiful enough to drown a thousand men,” Annie dared to say.





	At the Firmament

Annie sat on a long outcropping of rocks, facing the sea. She eagerly scribbled in her journal, collecting images of algae, starfish, and limpets. The ink quill she used was worn down, and the inkpot that sat lodged between two rocks was running dangerously low. What was more, the sun was setting, pulling the curtain closed on her day of drawing tidepool specimens. Still, she was reluctant to leave the ocean’s side, and would probably take a leisurely walk along the shore tonight, dawdling and disappointing her mother, who awaited her to return for evening chores.

Her father had always loved the sea, was a merchant sailor by trade, and was, by the cruelty of his job, rarely homebound. Her mother often griped of his absence, fretting in the same breath that he’d die with no body for them to bury, but Annie grew to love the sea and everything in it, everything on it, everything circling above it. The sea was another world, and Annie wanted to swallow it whole.

So from morning to night, she sketched the intricate, curved-ear shells; the tiny, claw-snipping crabs; the noisome, cawing gulls. Her dream, to the chagrin of her mother, was to become a real scientist. Her father supported the dream, and as she watched the waves lap against the rocks she sat on, she reflected on how she and her father were connected, from afar, by the same water.

Now the orange rind of the sun dipped into the horizon, seeming to dye the sea to its own color. It was as if the sun were dissolving into the salty water. Books and murmurs told her reality was different, with rumors and mathematics condemned by the Pope himself, saying that the earth was the one twisting itself around the sun. It was hard for Annie to form an argument for or against: she felt she was, like so many said of earth, at the center of the heavens. Then again, she’d snuck a look at her friend Armin’s forbidden books, ones that revealed ellipses and eclipses contrary to the truth that the men in Rome proclaimed so violently.

A chill hung on the air. Just as she was about to stand (her mother would complain if she returned past sunset again), she saw the water tremble and ripple mere feet from where she stood. Annie gaped at what appeared to be the backside of a great green fish cutting the water’s surface. It had only been an instant, but it was massive, and Annie had been close enough to glimpse the spiked dorsal fin just as it flowed back into the water. She crouched and leaned, dangerously close to tipping headlong into the sea. Suddenly a woman’s head burst from the water. Annie tumbled back, shocked.

The woman in the water gave a laughing sigh. “The land people always treat me as such.”

“What…what are you doing?” Annie asked.

Lord have mercy, this woman was beautiful! Jet black hair falling in gorgeous rivulets, wetted and glistening, with deep onyx eyes to match, and pale, creamy skin to offset it all.

“What I always do,” the woman said smoothly. “I’m treading water.”

“Oh,” Annie said, sitting up. “And why are you…treading water here?”

The beauty laughed again. “Because I find you so enchanting, land maiden!”

“Land…?”

And then the woman reared up and slowly flipped over backwards into the water. The first thing to make Annie gasp was the woman’s bare chest, milky pale breasts pert and shining with wet. As she bent backward, her head disappeared into the water, her lithe torso turning back with it to reveal the second shock: the mysterious lady’s tail. Where her legs should have been was a beautiful green-scaled tail that sparkled nearly gold in the low light of the sun. It split into two pale and thin seafoam green fins at the end, barely seen as the woman popped back up from her backward somersault. She laughed triumphantly as Annie removed and replaced her spectacles, in wonder at what she had seen.

“This is unbelievable,” Annie muttered. “You’re a…”

“Merperson? Mermaid? Siren?” she finished. “At least that’s what your people call us. I could always be a selkie. Perhaps a kraken?”

“A what? Wait. There are more of you?!” Annie blurted out.

The lady of the water shook her head. She spoke again, in a warm, soft voice like the flow of honey. “We are, as some say, a dying breed. Not many of us left.”

“Oh,” Annie said. “So you are…you’re the creature of legend who…”

The creature submerged herself so that her suddenly sulking eyes were just above the water, her hair floating and reaching around her like black weeds.

Annie stammered on. “You are one of the sirens who…drowns men?”

The siren’s eyes glittered as she brought her head back up. “Only men.”

“What…”

The siren shook her head, fast and dismissive. “A joke,” she said. “A very bad one judging by the look of your face.”

“So, siren,” Annie said, picking up her notebook and pen. “May I draw you?”

“Draw me? On those leaves you’re holding?”

“Yes!” Annie said, already beginning to scribble in excitement. “This is paper! The whole thing is a journal. It’s bound together by glue.”

“A journal. Hmmm. And I’m on it now? Depicted?” The mermaid blushed and craned her neck at the journal Annie held to her chest.

“Not yet,” Annie said. “Please! Sit on the rock so I can see your tail.”

The lady obliged, her strong arms pulling her body onto the rock with ease. When Annie could see all of her, she marveled at her length. End to end, she must have measured over six feet! Annie watched as she leaned her elbow on the rock and languished in the setting sun, tail twitching and flopping lazily. It was the most lovely body Annie had ever seen in her short life. In her heart, heaven was right here, bound, for a brief moment, to the land.

Annie’s fingers worked fast, getting more ink-stained the faster she dipped her quill as she tried to keep up with the smooth arcs of the siren’s face, torso, and tail. Before it got too dark, Annie exhaled a shaky breath and showed the siren creature her work, a disappointing ink facsimile of the beauty before her.

The siren took it in her hands, staining the pages with blotches of water.

In awe the siren marveled at the sketch. “Am I really a sight such as this?”

“Yes. Beautiful enough to drown a thousand men,” Annie dared to say.

The siren smiled sadly, eyes sparkling at the comment. “I wish I could take it with me,” she sighed.

“I have something you can take with you,” Annie said. Her heart leapt boldly. Now wasn’t a time to be reserved. “Go in the water, back where you appeared.” The siren jumped back in the water and swam over to her, eager. Etched on her face was an adorable curiosity. Annie leaned over the firmament of rock and water and kissed the siren full on the lips.

The siren looked startled for a long moment, then broke into a sly grin.

“There,” Annie said, voice faking bravado. “You can take that under the water with you.”

“I will,” the mermaid said with a smile. “You’ll be with me in the dark.”

Annie nodded, holding back furthering questioning. “I’ll be here tomorrow.”

“At the setting sun?” the siren asked.

“Of course. Perhaps I can follow the sound of you singing,” Annie answered.

“Young maiden,” she said woefully. “I’ve the world’s most awful voice.”

The lady began to swim away, dipping deep down to burst back up several feet away, her entire length dawning in the air, her tail appearing, glimmering, then disappearing with her whole self, into the haunted grey of the ocean.

“Wait!” Annie called, standing so fast on the rocks that she nearly slipped in. “What’s your name?!”

The siren popped its head out of the water and said, “Mikasa!”

“Mikasa,” Annie said quietly, then wrote it under her drawing.

It was a name that tasted dangerous, a water that she shouldn’t touch to her tongue.

“Mikasa,” she said again, the sound luring her as she studied the smeared-with-wet ink. “Mikasa.”

**Author's Note:**

> [For Mikannie Week Day 5](https://mikannieweek.tumblr.com/)


End file.
